1960s footage shows how cooked British drink driving was before breathalyser laws
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Culture

1960s footage shows how cooked British drink driving was before breathalyser laws

One geezer said it's not fair because they're not breathalysing pedestrians as well - come on mate.

A Tiktok showing UK pubgoers in the 1960s and their attitudes towards drinking and driving is a bit out the gate. 

The video, posted by @goddog701, shows British geezers putting back more than 8 pints before getting behind the wheel.

It comes from a news segment around the time when a new law was passed in the UK introducing breathalysers and making it illegal to drive when having a blood alcohol level higher than 80mg per 100ml of blood.

The law was introduced as there were 13,000 alcohol-related driving deaths the year before, so good call from them, that’s 13,000 too many. 

The interviewer goes around asking geezers at a ‘motorists’ pub’ (whatever the hell that means) what they think of the new law and there is some bat shit crazy answers that come out. 

“It’s fairly diabolical,” said one bloke. “It doesn’t take any account,for example, of the pedestrian who’s had too much to drink. He could cause an accident and he doesn’t get tested. It’s the driver who gets tested and I don’t think that’s fair.”

Alright, mate. We don’t mean to rag on an old guy but there’s a bit of a difference between a horsed bloke walking and a horsed bloke controlling a 1,000kg hunk of metal that’s capable of going 80km/h.

Another guy reckons he could drive just fine after 8 pints and another saw himself as "quite capable" of driving after three. 

“It’s probably quite a good law,” said one suited-up man who had just failed a breathalyser.

“Anything to prevent accidents on the road I can agree with. Obviously, it’s different with different people - some people get drunk on a small gin, other people take on 15 pints before they get drunk.”

The TikTok is an eye opener when it comes to how perspectives change (or not) over time but the lesson is ‘lightweight’ or not, you should never drink and drive. It’s just fucking dumb and dangerous.